A Foul Play

It’s difficult to tell whether the pencil pushers at the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks are just lazy or whether they misunderstood the question. Either way, a comical report issued by the department last week provides a great lesson in bureaucratic obfuscation.

The question was simple. The West Valley Girls Softball League filed a federal lawsuit in April alleging that girl athletes routinely get assigned less desirable playing fields than boys. Shortly afterward, Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer asked Recreation and Parks Department officials to report on policies assuring equal access for girls.

What Feuer got back was, as he charitably put it, a “very superficial discussion.” A three-page letter from Recreation and Parks general manager Jackie Tatum dodges the question of what the department does to ensure access to facilities and instead lists various clinics and programs designed to interest girls in sports. These are fine programs, but they don’t answer any of the questions raised by Feuer or the West Valley Girls Softball League’s lawsuit.

The availability of decent playing fields is a real problem--and not just for girls in the West San Fernando Valley. In fact, the shortages are even more acute in other parts of the city. Providing safe, clean fields ought to be a top priority. But it requires far more imagination than Recreation and Parks has so far demonstrated. For instance, the department ought to be looking at ways to use surplus land owned by the Department of Water & Power or the Army Corps of Engineers.

Bureaucratic self-congratulation won’t open up playing fields to girls or anyone else. Feuer has given Recreation and Parks officials another month to engage their brains and outline a concrete plan for making more facilities available more often. Let’s hope they don’t strike out again.